Originally Posted by
LikeaGVI
What’s of value to you might not be to others. Best articulated by one of my favorite meme’s:
Originally Posted by
AA_Flyer
If you read my post, you'd see that my SWU's expire in July, so I have to use them anyway. Since 95% of my flights are MCO to DCA, MCO to CLT, or MCO to ORD, a 3 hour itinerary from BOS to MIA isn't a bad use of my upgrades, especially on a holiday. I had been saving them for some international business trips but for obvious reasons they didn't happen.
My point is more that - from a program intent/design standpoint - there is more opportunity utility in SWUs on long-haul flights than there is in domestic-shorthauls
For international long-haul:
* generally more seats per plane to upgrade into, theoretically
* More barriers of cost for people to purchase, buy-up, or otherwise upgrade into J. (Differences of $1000s of dollars vs differences of $10s to $100s for domestic F)
* no parallel system of complementary upgrades
Obviously if you have expiring SWUs that you don't have another anticipated use for, you should go for it. But broadly describing SWUs as useless on the basis of a short domestic during a high travel period is a significant overstatement, IMO.
Oh, and surprised no one has said this yet: but seat maps are not a firm indicator of actual loads, if that's where you are getting your numbers from. That 4 to 3 change you saw simply could have been someone selecting their seat.